2024年6月2日发(作者：)

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英语电影片名的翻译

摘 要

电影是一种集艺术性和商业性于一体的艺术形式，是最具有影响力的媒体

之一。随着中国改革开放的成功，中国与英语国家的经济文化交流日益频繁。

近年来，越来越多的英语电影涌入中国电影市场。为满足中国观众日益增长的

观影需求，英语电影在不断地被译为汉语。电影的翻译既是介绍异域文化的一

种简洁直观的手段，又是传播本国本民族文化的一个重要途径，而电影片名的

翻译又是影片翻译中的重中之重，所以我们通过实例，针对不同的片名采用不

同的译法，进而深入研究电影片名的翻译方法。由于英文电影片名独特的文化

内涵，在汉译时必须要从多方面考虑，采用适当的翻译方法。文章从分析英语

电影片名总体情况入手，分析了英文电影片名的特点和功能，研究了英语电影

片名英译汉时应遵循的理论原则和翻译方法，然后提出了音译、直译、意译、

编译四种方法。

关键词

：英文电影片名；特点；翻译方法

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Abstract

The movie, a popular art with both artistic and commercial values, is one of the

most influential mass media nowadays. With the success of China’s Reform and

Opening up Policy and the strengthened economic and cultural communication

between China and English-speaking countries, recent years we have seen a large

flow of English movies into Chinese movie market. English movies are being

continuously translated to meet Chinese audience’s growing needs. The translation

of movies is not only a simple and direct way to introduce the exotic culture, but also

an important channel to transfer our own culture. While the translation of the title of

a movie is the top priority in translation movies, therefore, we study the way that the

translation of movies deeply, using different ways to translate movies. As the titles of

the English movies always carry the special cultural senses, when they translated

into the Chinese, many factors should be considered and different methods of

translation should be taken accordingly. The paper explores the general analysis of

English movie titles, discusses the features and the function of the movie titles, and

puts forward the relevant theories and methods, then gives the four translation

methods: transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.

Key words

: English movie title; feature; translation methods

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Contents

Abstract

······································································································ II

1 Introduction

···························································································· 1

2 A General Review of English Movie Title

s ················································· 2

2.1 Categories of English Movies ··································································· 2

2.1.1 Adventure Movies ········································································ 2

2.1.2 Fantasy Movies ··········································································· 2

2.1.3 Comedy Movies ··········································································· 3

2.1.4 Lyric Movies ·············································································· 3

2.2 Features of English Movie Titles ······························································· 3

2.2.1 Linguistic Features ······································································· 3

2.2.2 Aesthetic Features ········································································ 4

2.2.3 Cultural Features ·········································································· 4

2.2.4 Commercial Features ····································································· 4

2.3 Functions of English Movie Titles ····························································· 5

2.3.1 Informative Function ····································································· 5

2.3.2 Aesthetic Function ········································································ 5

2.3.3 Commercial Function ···································································· 6

3 Methods of English Movie Title Translation

·············································· 7

3.1 Principles of English Movie Title Translation ················································ 7

3.2 Methods of English Movie Title Translation ················································· 8

3.2.1 Transliteration ············································································· 8

3.2.2 Literal Translation ········································································ 9

3.2.3 Free Translation ··········································································· 9

3.2.4 Adapted translation ····································································· 11

Conclusion

································································································· 13

Bibliography

······························································································ 15

Acknowledgments

······················································································· 16

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1 Introduction

As an audiovisual art, a product of a particular culture, movie is one of the most

influential mass media reflecting people’s life. Although movie was born in the west,

it is gaining prosperous popularity and has now become a global art. During the past

decades since 1978 when China began to conduct its Reform and Opening-up Policy

to the outside world, communication between China and the rest of the world, has

been becoming increasingly frequent, resulting in the plunging of many foreign

movies into China’s movie market. Since very few people can understand original

English movies, all the original works have to be translated to reach the vast Chinese

audience. Translating foreign audiovisual art works has become a significant activity

in promoting cultural exchanges. However, movie translation is far from being

explored. It is true to movie title translation in particular. The movie title, being short

in form but rich in meaning, has its own linguistic, aesthetic and cultural features,

which deserve careful investigation and consideration from the translator. Movie’s

titles translation is the translation across cultural boundaries. A good translation of

the movie title would unquestionably contribute a lot to the charm and success of the

movie. On the contrary, a poor translation may not only fail to attract audience or

even mislead the audience, but degrades the value and beauty of the original movie

on the whole. Thus the translation of movie titles is an interesting, meaningful and

demanding activity. A properly translated movie title should be concise, condensed

and compact, which can grip the attention of the audience at their first sight and

stimulate their association with the plot, reveal the theme or offer some clue. In this

paper, we will introduce the categories of English movies, the general features, and

functions of English movie titles, then set out four methods of translation, and a set

of principles followed by the translation, then sum up movie title’s translation should

be combined with the translation practice, and continually improve in the practice.

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2 A General Review of English Movie Titles

It is not difficult to see that movie, as a special art form, is different from other forms

such as books or magazines, which could be laid on bookshelves for readers to

appreciate first and decide whether to buy or not later. Movie differentiates itself

from books, magazine and TV series in that it is able to achieve the effect of

aesthetic, artistic and sensual pleasures at a very fast speed. Particularly in this hustle

and bustle world, movie title is destined to be very attractive in the first place, so as

to arouse people’s desire to watch before they walk into the cinema, and achieve its

commercial goal, that is more box office as well. Whether the movie is attracting or

not, the name is one important deciding factor, for it is often the first that comes into

the potential viewer’s attention. If the title is eye-catching and curiosity-stimulating,

the movie is half successful. As has been stated above, a good translation of movie

titles may add charm to the movie and contribute a lot to the box-office value.

Before we come to the core of the thesis, it is quite necessary to make a general

analysis of English movie titles in order that it will provide a better understanding of

the research subject.

2.1

Categories of English Movies

According to He Ying, movies usually fall into three categories based on different

contents: documentary movies, science and educational movies, and feature movies.

Feature movies are most popular in Chinese movie market, they not only cater for

people of all walks of life, but also convey the most cultural information, hence the

present paper focuses specially on the Chinese translation of English feature films,

which are further divided into four sub-categories, namely, adventure movies,

fantasy movies, comedy movies and lyric movies.

2.1.1 Adventure Movies

Adventure movies include action movies, horror movies, western movies，disaster

movies, spy movies and crime movies. Titles of this kind of movies normally feature

emotion-stirring effect. Examples are The Godfather《教父》,Once Upon A Time in

the West《西部往事》, Rebecca《蝴蝶梦》.

2.1.2 Fantasy Movies

Fantasy movies are usually scientific, visionary and imaginative, with science fiction

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movie as the main component. Titles of this kind aim to reveal new and strange

things to the audience. A host of movies belong to this group, such as, Star War《星

球大战》, Alien《异形》, Jurassic Park《侏罗纪公园》.

2.1.3 Comedy Movies

Comedy movies are designed to arouse laughter from the audience. Comedies are

light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment. Being rich

in humorous flavor is the feature of titles of this type of movies. Movies such as Hot

Shots! 《反斗神鹰》, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World《疯狂世界》belong to this

category.

2.1.4 Lyric Movies

A large number of movies can be categorized into this type, including love story

movies, family movies, drama movies and musical/dance movies. Movie titles of

this kind are plain in wording but rich in romantic lyric and emotional flavor.

Examples are Gone with the Wind《乱世佳人》, Golden Pond《金色池塘》, Love

Story《爱情故事》, etc.

2.2 Features of English Movie Titles

Although movies, as a kind of literary form, have something in common with other

literary forms, they also possess some unique features, which make them different

from others. The same is true of the case of movies titles. In the following part the

overall features of English movies titles will be expounded from the linguistic,

aesthetic, cultural and commercial perspectives.

2.2.1 Linguistic Features

Generally speaking, although English movie titles are very short, concise and

compact with regard to the structure, yet rich in meaning. Lots of movie titles only

contain one word, which may be the name of the hero or heroine, the place, or the

time where or when the story happens or the theme of the whole story. For instance,

Ali《拳王阿里》, Jaw《大白鲨》, Crash《冲撞》and Munich《慕尼黑》. Sometimes,

they adopt various kinds of phrases as titles, namely, noun phrases, verb phrases and

prepositional phrases, which are exemplified in the following titles: The Silence of

the Lamb《沉默的羔羊》，consisting of a modifier and the word it modifies; Dance

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With Wolves《与狼共舞》，using the structure of a verb-object phrase; On Golden

Pond《金色池塘》，employing the prepositional phrase. In addition, some movies

employ highly concise sentences as the titles. For instance, It’s a Wonderful Life《美

好生活》，The Superman Returns《超人归来》.

2.2.2 Aesthetic Features

As mentioned before, movie is a typical form of the modern art, which has its own

aesthetic values and features. Being the part which first greets the audience’s eyes,

the title of a movie can well reflect such aesthetic features. Generally speaking, the

aesthetic characteristics of movie titles are closely related to the application of

rhetorical devices, such as simile, metaphor, irony, personification, alliteration, and

so on. For example: The Elephant Man《象人》(metaphor), Crystal Heart《心如水

晶》(simile), True Lies《真实的谎言》(oxymoron), What Price Glory《光荣何价

》 (rhetoric question), The Science of the Lambs《沉默的羔羊》(allusion).

2.2.3 Cultural Features

Movie titles are closely related to various aspects of societies, such as religion,

history, philosophy and so on. More often than not, cultural features are closely

related to the quotation of idioms and allusions, which convey rich cultural

meanings.

For example, movies such as Seven《七宗罪》, Original Sin《原罪》are enveloped

in strong Western color, and clearly show the great influence upon English movie

titles exerted by western religious culture. A movie is a mirror and conveyer of a

specific culture as the social context, cultural phenomena and ideology are shown

and implied in it. This feature of movies can be reflected at the level of movie titles,

which are inevitably branded by the typical national characteristics and cultural

values. Chinese people can gradually get familiar with western cultures by getting in

touch with English movies and fully understanding the titles with cultural-loaded

words.

2.2.4 Commercial Features

As a popular artistic form, movies are products of commercialization. To some

extent, it is justified in saying that a movie will be meaningless if it cannot attract the

public attention and bring large profit. Therefore, film titles should always be

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eye-catching and be tinged with commercial color. In a sense, such characteristic can

help to boom the movie industry. However, this does not mean that one can merely

pursue large commercial profit by providing some queer titles with no regard to the

connotation of the original.

2.3 Functions of English Movie Titles

What on earth is the function of a movie title? Simply speaking, its primary function

is to identify the film. In other words, a film title is a guide and interpreter of a film,

which is firstly able to promote sales of the film and cause people’s interest, viewers’

discussion, researchers’ analysis etc. Therefore, a good title can be regarded as a

kind of catalyst for the audience so that they have already had an emotional

resonance with the film before the actual appreciation of it. Generally, movie titles

have three basic functions: the informative function, the aesthetic function and the

commercial function.

2.3.1 Informative Function

The informative function is the basic function that any movie titles should possess.

As the word “informative” reveals, this function provides basic or relevant

information to the target reader. The core of informative function is the facts of the

topic, the reality outside the language and the idea. As for a film title, it is supposed

to give hint to the audience about what is going on in the story, thus help the

audience decide whether they are interested in the movie or not.

2.3.2 Aesthetic Function

This is the language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or

imagined sound and secondly through its figures of speech. The rhythm, balance and

contrasts of sentences, clauses and words also play their part. An excellent movie

title can also perform aesthetic function in terms of providing the audience aesthetic

enjoyment through colorful words with sound effects and the application of

rhetorical devices. Movie titles with aesthetic function please the feelings of

audiences through their unevenness in intonation, smoothness in sound and

vividness in image presentation.

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2.3.3 Commercial Function

Nowadays, it is very common that a movie costs hundreds of millions of dollars,

especially the hot hit made by Hollywood. The commercial function proposed in this

thesis is, to some extent, similar to the vocative function, the core of which is the

readership, the addressee. Taking this explanation as reference, it can be concluded

that a good movie title can also “call upon” the audience to see the movie, or to react

in the way intended by the producer-buying tickets so that great box office will be

generated.

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3 Methods of English Movie Title Translation

The title is the head of the movie, and it serves at least three functions, as

afore-stated, that is the informative function, the aesthetic function and the

commercial function. A movie title usually embodies more than one function;

nonetheless it inevitably will put emphasis on one of them. It is also the case with

translation methods. Various translation methods or techniques exist and can be

employed by the translator. Yet, none of them can solve all of the problems, so in

movie titles translation, there must be one or more methods that are favored and are

relied on by a translator. This chapter is devoted to the demonstration of the main

techniques and methods enjoying the most popularity in this field, and when

necessary, examples are cited to further elaborate the demonstration.

3.1 Principles of English Movie Title Translation

The so-called principles and criteria of translation are actually the two aspects of the

same thing. The former lays emphasis on the translator, who should follow these

principles while translating; while the latter on the reader or critic, who may use the

criteria to evaluate translation works. Whenever principles or criteria of translation

are under discussion in China, Yan Fu’s “three-character guide”, which was first

proposed in 1898, would be mentioned, namely, the principle of “信，达，雅”

(faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance). In the past decades, Mr. Yan’s principle

of translation has been generally regarded as a yardstick to measure the professional

level of translation and a goal for translators to strive after. However, some scholars

maintain the original three characters, and in the meantime add some new concepts

to the character “elegance”. Despite the variety of opinions, two criteria are

unanimously accepted, namely, the criterion of faithfulness/accuracy and that of

smoothness, we may also take these two criteria as the principles of translation in

general.

A movie title is the foremost window through which the audience may get a

rough idea of the content of the movie at first sight. Therefore, how to translate

English movie titles successfully into Chinese has become an exceedingly important

issue for the introduction of English movies to China. However, adopting what

translation methods for translating English movie titles first needs a set of scientific

principles, under the guide of which the translated film titles would be attractive,

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easy to be accepted and can fulfill the functions the original ones have. At the same

time, English movie title translation is a cross-cultural communication process. In

order to achieve the expected effect, in the translation of English movie titles, the

translators need to pay attention to the above principles.

3.2 Methods of English Movie Title Translation

As we all know, there exist many translation methods and no one single method can

solve all problems of translation. This is especially true with English movie title

translation. Techniques and methods are applied in English movie title translation.

There are four types of translation strategies altogether in the present thesis, namely,

transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.

3.2.1 Transliteration

Transliteration means to write words or letters in or as the letters of a different

alphabet and to preserve the sounds of the original to the largest extent, is an

indispensable translation method when there is no semantic equivalence between

two texts. In movie titles translation, it is characterized by phonetic correspondence,

that is, to describe the English syllables through the corresponding Chinese

characters carrying similar sounds. Transliteration is usually used in the translation

of proper names, names of persons and places in movie titles. The translator needs to

find the corresponding Chinese characters carrying similar pronunciation and

acceptable to Chinese audience. Although this approach is not widely used in

English movie title translation, it is indispensable. A few examples are given below:

Casablanca《卡萨布兰卡》, Chicago《芝加哥》. Many movies adapted from famous

literary works just follow the transliterated names of the original, such as Romeo and

Juliet is translated into《罗密欧与朱丽叶》, Sister Carrie into《嘉莉妹妹》and Jane

Eyre《简爱》. It is also true with the name of celebrities, historic figures, well-known

places, historic events like Gandhi《甘地》, Harry Potter《哈利波特》.

Just as every coin has two sides, transliteration has both advantages and

disadvantages. On the one hand, it keeps the rhythm and forms of the original title

and attracts the audience’s attention by its strong foreign flavor. The foreignness

may arouse the audience’s curiosity to explore what is exotic and unknown to them.

What’s more, as the movie title is already of cognitive value and significance to the

audience, the audience will feel easier to get access to the movie. On the other hand,

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transliteration is to write the foreign words in Chinese characters carrying similar

sounds, which may make no much sense to the audience since the title gives little

information or hint about the movie to the audience but an unfamiliar name.

3.2.2 Literal Translation

Literal translation is applied frequently in English movie title translation. It can

reproduce both form and content of the original in most cases. This method proves

very simple, feasible and effective when the title reflects almost exactly the original

content of the film. Such titles can be directly translated into Chinese without much

second thought. Some examples are listed below: Around the World in 80 Days

《环游地球八十天》, Schindler’s List《辛德勒的名单》, Pearl Harbor《珍珠港

》, Lion King《狮子王》, The Princess Diaries《公主日记》, Roman Holiday《罗

马假日》.

Sometimes the adjustments of word order prove necessary and deserve due

attention when the technique of literal translation is used. That is when the literal

approach is applied in titles translation. The translator needs to pay attention to the

wording of the translated version, to be specific, to make the version concise,

compact, vivid, appropriate and comprehensible to the audience. For instance，“云中

漫步” is a better version than “漫步在云端” for the romance film A Walk in the

Clouds. Other examples involving change of word order are as follows: Man in

Black《黑衣人》, A Cry in the Dark《在黑暗中哭泣》and so on.

The above demonstration is all about advantages and the applicability of the

literal approach to English movie titles translation. It retains a unity of the form and

information between the translated version and the original. It also keeps the exotic

flavor of the source text and generally well serves the vocative function of the title to

attract eyeballs. However, it can also cause problems. Sometimes literal translation

may confuse the reader because there are differences between languages. And

incompatibility between the form of the translated version and the original content

may appear, especially when cultural elements are involved. To solve the problem,

other methods or techniques need to be employed so that connotations of the original

title can be preserved and the basic functions of the film title be fulfilled completely.

3.2.3 Free Translation

In any translation, translators have to remind themselves of not expecting to find

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equivalent expressions in the target language all the time. In this situation, they may

often need to adopt free translation, which is an alternative approach that is used

mainly to convey the meaning and the spirit of the original title without sticking to

the form mechanically.

Some movie titles convey strong cultural flavor, like the use of cultural-loaded

words, phrases and idioms. In such occasions it’s difficult to reserve the original

form and meanwhile make the target audiences understand the inner meaning of the

title. Free translation is applicable in these cases. For example: One Flew Over the

Cuckoo’s Nest《飞越疯人院》, Seven《七宗罪》, etc.

Free translation need not pay attention to the form of the original, including the

construction of the original sentences, meaning of the original works, and metaphor

in the original and so on. By free translation, people are able to render the brief

message of the original title in a more free and flexible way. But free translation

does not mean to delete or add content to the original and translators must consider

the original carefully, know its stress, translate it naturally, and express the meaning

of the original.

A typical example is the translation of Waterloo Bridge《魂断蓝桥》，which tells

a tragic love story. The word “bridge” is kept and translated literally, for it plays a

considerably important part in the movie where the story takes place and the heroine

eventually commits suicide. Taking the cultural connotation into consideration, the

translator skillfully resorts to the Chinese folktale of Blue Bridge“蓝桥相会”, a

Chinese allusion going like this: a young man named Wei Sheng fell in love with a

beautiful girl and they pledged to get married, but the girl’s parents didn’t agree, so

they made an appointment to meet at the “blue bridge” outside the town to run away.

It rained heavily that night. Wei Sheng waited for the girl’s coming who had been

detained by her parents. Wei Sheng did not want to betray their oath and kept waiting,

as a result, he was drowned by the flood; when the girl escaped from home and

arrived at the bridge, she felt so sad when she saw Wei Sheng’s dead body; without

hesitation, she jumped into the river embracing Wei Sheng. After that, Chinese

people used the “blue bridge” to stand for the lovers’ meeting place.

The translation“魂断蓝桥”implies an emotion of departure, which may easily

arouse resonance among the Chinese audience. Considering the mood of the story,

the two Chinese character“魂 断”are added to conform to the tragic atmosphere of

the film, which can easily kindle the audience’s curiosity about a heart-stirring love

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story hidden between the lines. In addition, the selection of the Chinese

four-character structure well suits the taste of the Chinese audience and is in

accordance with the Chinese aesthetic standard, thus having a great attraction to the

audience. If it is literally translated as “滑铁卢桥”,the Chinese audience might easily

associate this film with the defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo，and take it

as a war movie. However, this is a romantic and sad love story and Waterloo Bridge

in the movie merely serves as a background scene. For these reasons, compared with

the slavishly translated version“滑铁卢桥”，which sounds lifeless and tasteless and

which may cause the Chinese audience to associate it with a historical movie about

Napoleon, the version“魂断蓝桥”surpasses in successfully achieving the

informative, aesthetic as well as the appellative functions.

More successful cases could be found in movie title translation practice, such as

Speed《生死时速》, County Bridge《廊桥遗梦》, Ghost《人鬼情未了》, Forrest

Gump《阿甘正传》, The Devil Wears Prada《时尚女魔头》and so on.

However, translators should distinguish free translation from random

translation. A good free translation is not the unrestrained imagination of the

translator, but should be created by a thorough understanding of the movie content,

theme and spirit, so as to retain and better express the original meanings and artistic

features of the movie title.

3.2.4 Adapted translation

Adapted translation is the last resort in translating English movie titles. It occurs

sometimes to the translator that neither literal nor liberal translation works in some

cases. Even if handled by the virtue of the two methods, some renderings still

become obscure and hard to understand, or tend to be pedestrian and flat, or

ambiguous and misleading. Faced with such dilemma, the translator has to develop

his initiative and creativity to crack the hard nut. The choice would be adapted

translation. Adapted translation is to shake off the original title and makes a fresh

one based on the content of the movie. This approach lies in “betraying” the original

title so as to be loyal to the latent meaning, the theme and the style of the movie. To

a large extent, adapted translation is a process of generalization of the content of the

movie. Therefore, the translator must first understand the content and theme of the

original movie thoroughly, and then correctly and creatively reproduce a title.

In the practice of English movie title translation, many successful creative and

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appropriate Chinese versions meet the audience’s eyes, in which the diction is

carefully weighted, the thematic meaning deeply explored, the artistic effect vividly

reproduced and great interest and desire from the audience conjured up accordingly.

The American science fiction film The Day After Tomorrow tells a story of the

relation between human beings and the natural environment. Global warming melts

the polar ice caps, which makes the oceans rise and disrupts the Gulf Stream. A

climate shift occurs, sending the Earth into an ice age. Millions die and the world is

changed forever, but the planet has “cleansed” itself. The translators give the version

《后天》and《明天过后》respectively, both of which are literal translations. The

version《末日浩劫》 is an example of adapted translation. For such a grand scene

and a shocking and alarming movie, the latter version is apparently preferable than

the slavishly translated versions. In《后天》and《明天过后》，the real meaning of

the title has gone, the panic atmosphere and alarm bell effect have been ignored and

the artistic appeal has been reduced to a large extent. Here are more examples of

successful adapted translation: Volcano《地火危城》You Can’t Take It with You《

浮生如梦》, Sideways《杯酒人生》.

In summary, taking all translation methods into consideration, which one gets

the upper hand and thus is preferable in English movie titles translation? As

demonstrated above that each one has two sides. It is unrealistic to advocate literal

translation or liberal translation or even adaptation as the sole recommended method

of titles translation. It can be found from the previous analysis and examples that

there is no definite contradiction among the methods. For many versions, it is hard to

tell exactly what specific method is employed.

Actually, all the methods are indispensable and supplementary to each other.

No single method can always solve all the problems in titles translation. Whenever

one method does not work well for linguistic, customary, and cultural or other

factors, naturally the translator should turn to the supplementary methods for help so

that he/she can accomplish his/her task. The most important requirement for English

movie titles translation is that the translator must have a comprehensive

understanding of the whole film including plot, theme, and cultural background and

so on. To read a title needs only a few seconds, whereas to understand the entire film

takes at least tens of minutes. Again it proves that movie titles translation is not an

easy task. In addition, the translator should have a deep understanding of the essence

of each method and make the best use of them in a flexible and appropriate way.

.

4 Conclusion

We discuss it mainly from a cultural perspective and explore English movie titles

translation in China with the aid of functional theories. The movie is one of the most

influential mass media products. With China conducting more and more cultural,

economic and political exchanges with foreign countries, English movies have

entered the Chinese market and held a very important position in Chinese people’s

recreational life. So translating English movies has become a significant activity in

promoting cultural exchange.

In the previous chapters we begin with the categories of movie, and introduce

the linguistic, aesthetic, and cultural features of the movie title, then also summarize

and analyze the functions of English movie titles: the informative function, aesthetic

function and commercial function. These three functions operate all together within

a movie title with an emphasis on one or two aspects of the three.

Then we analyze the translation techniques commonly employed in movie titles

translation. Each method has its effectiveness as well as limitations. This thesis holds

that all the methods are indispensable and supplementary to each other. No single

method can always solve all the problems in English movie titles translation. When

one method does not work well, the translator should turn to the other methods.

As the development of Internet and information technology and the

reinforcement of international communication, though movie title is a very important

means for movies’ promoting, it’s no longer the only way for movies’ propaganda.

The star effect and the influence of the director have become a very important factor

that can affect a movie’s box office. They even advance before movie title to the

audiences’ acknowledgement.

In the future, maybe the translation of English movie titles will be more

inclined to respect the original title and the source culture. Translating English movie

titles looks easy, but it takes a lot of learning. The work needs to be dealt with and

studied carefully and conscientiously. The present thesis is a tentative study of

English movie title translation in the hope that it can make a further contribution to

this field. Although suggesting a worthy theoretical framework for English movie

titles translation, this thesis is far from a perfect one, and it also has some limitations,

both in terms of quantitative analysis and specific explanations.

To sum up, there are great study space in movie title translation field, and more

questions for the scholars to solve. This paper is just a humble trial for sparking

.

mature and in-depth points by others. Considering the limitations of this thesis, we

hope that in the future, researchers equipped with more theoretical competence could

achieve more along the path.

.

Bibliography

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Gutty, Ernst-August. 1991. Translation and Relevance [M]. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

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Mark Shuttleworth&Moira Cowie. 2004. Dictionary of Translation Studies[M].

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邓建琼,英文电影片名的翻译[J],龙岩学院学报，2005 (8)。

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Acknowledgments

Upon the completion of this thesis, I would like to take this opportunity to

express my heartfelt thanks to a1l those who have offered me help.

First and foremost, I would like to extend my profound appreciation to my

supervisor, who guided my proposal of this thesis, for her inspiring instructions,

brilliant guidance, detailed comments and consistent encouragement on my work. I

especially appreciate her assistance in my selection of the topic, sorting of thoughts,

searching for reference and revision of the thesis.

My heartfelt thanks also go to all the teachers, who have taught me and helped

me in my past four years’ study and whose insightful lectures have broadened my

vision in the field of translation.

In addition, I also would like to express my thankfulness to the scholars and

predecessors who did the relevant research in this field. Their researches and studies

provide me a wide range of references and plenty of materials for my thesis.